


Behind Closed Doors

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: IronPanther Plotbunnies [5]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Maria Stark, BAMF T'Challa (Marvel), I Don't Even Know, M/M, Prompt Fic, Random & Short, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 20:44:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8259992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: He didn’t want to believe… didn’t want to believe that Howard hated him that much, and Obadiah had always been like his second father, and the better one at that. But he stumbled across a pretty nasty plan to kidnap him, themselves at that, torture a few designs out of him, and then kill him off. Based off a prompt- to summarize the prompt was evil!Howard and Obi hatch a plan to kill Tony but not without getting a few designs out of him first for their own usage. Tony, needing a place to hide, busts into Wakanda because they're isolated, not fond of foreigners, and even less fond of Starks given Howard's stealing vibranium for Steve's shield. Tony breaks in so that being in jail will save his butt from his father and then the lovely prince T'Challa takes notice.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leefdoor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leefdoor/gifts).



> This is named after a Rise Against song called, obviously, behind closed doors. I figured it was relevant here at least in name. 
> 
> Warnings for mentions of child abuse, domestic violence, light (very light) gore, and bad living conditions (I'm not sure what to call it). If something needs to be added let me know and I'll add it in.
> 
> As mentioned in the tags this was a prompt- shoutout to Leefdoor. I hope this is alright, I sort of ran with what you said so I'm not sure if this is even remotely what you wanted.
> 
> Also we're just gunna ignore my timey wimey bullshit in here, this isn't meant to be overly realistic.

Tony isn’t an idiot- actually that’s kind of the problem here. The fact that he isn’t stupid, that is. So it started like this: as usual he was in the process of starting something new, a semi-autonomous AI system, when said AI system found something. FRIDAY was trained to catch certain phrases due to them being a high priority. Like ‘Tony Stark’ in the same sentence as ‘naked’ because he wanted to see if people at least posted the good sex tapes and nude pictures. They didn’t and he was getting really tired of people not figuring out his angles. Honestly, how many bad nudes did a guy have to suffer through before someone figured out which angle his ass looked the best in?

But then FRIDAY picked something else up and at first he thought it was some sort of fake plan hatched up by some ridiculous group of people with nothing else better to do. But once he started reading he quickly realized it wasn’t a joke. He didn’t want to believe… didn’t want to believe that Howard hated him that much, and Obadiah had always been like his second father, and the better one at that. But he stumbled across a pretty nasty plan to kidnap him, _themselves_ at that, torture a few designs out of him, and then kill him off.

He supposed that he could take comfort in the fact that Jarvis remained the cool uncle who was better than his asshole dad- including the surrogate one now. Jarvis, ever the helpful butler, helped plot his way out of America and then he was off to where Rhodey was currently stationed, and then he planned his final move.

Busting into Wakanda hadn’t been an easy task but Tony is a genius, one on the run at that. Wakanda was extremely closed off to the rest of the world but Tony knew two things about it. One, Wakanda is an isolationist country that didn’t like outsiders. And two, thanks to Howard; they had an aversion to Starks in particular. He was now almost happy that Howard had somehow managed to break into the country to steal vibranium for the great Steve Rogers, whom Tony was sure would absolutely be on board with a Howard’s plot to murder his own kid. He was supposed to be the embodiment of the American way and all that right, what said American like killing your own kid? Anyone? Anyone? Alright, so Tony didn’t find it very funny either. But he’s practical and the plan was already in place, he just needed to make sure there was no way Howard and Obi could follow through on it.

That would be best achieved by going to a place where media doesn’t escape and his counter option was North Korea. Obviously Wakanda was better than that so. His plan, though rough, included making sure he actually got _into_ the country and to do that he did some finagling. Wakanda’s systems were way more advanced than most of the stuff he came into contact with- save for his own creations- but it still took time to tamper with the lights. Rhodey gave him tips on concealing himself not that he listened, instead he stuck cameras around to do his dirty work. Granted those women were _damn_ good at finding them but he still learned how they dealt with a possible boarder breach so he still managed to get in even if he only made it like five feet in before he was knocked out. The last thing he sees before he hits the ground is the tech that he managed to black out turning back on.

Which leads him back to where he is now, in jail, sitting around collecting more grease in his already disgusting hair. But Wakanda isn’t going to let him go anywhere soon, which was both good and bad. Good for obvious reasons, he isn’t exactly fond of the whole getting-tortured-and-murdered plan his father and his work bud had planned out, but it also meant that he couldn’t warn anyone about the potential danger than Howard and SI were at the moment. In hindsight he probably should have called aunt Peggy but he’s never been very good at these things. Besides, he’s currently rotting in a Wakandan jail and honestly he is impressed.

The conditions weren’t _half_ as bad as what he was expecting. He got his own prison cot, complete with a frame and a flimsy little mattress. That was it, but it was still better than what he was expecting. He got bathroom privileges twice a day and he _really_ wished someone would let him shower, but all in all even the food wasn’t horrible. Alright, so that’s a blatant lie, everything tasted the way baby shit looked but still. They fed him three times a day, that’s nice. And no torture either; just an interrogation every couple of days but has answers never change and those women that guarded Wakanda seemed antsy about it.

But he didn’t have much to tell. He broke in to escape his father- that was pretty straightforward to him. To the Dora Milaje, however, it seemed more like a rehearsed answer. In their defense they weren’t wrong, Tony had rehearsed that answer about a million times but it didn’t make the statement any less true.

*

T’Challa had heard about the break in, of course, because it was nearly impossible to breach the boarders of his country. He did not, however, anticipate that _jail_ had been the goal and the Dora Milaje did not believe Stark’s story. His father figured this was a good opportunity for him to exercise his skill in dealing with intruders given that Stark has been deemed smart, but harmless. Or mostly harmless. According to the Dora Milaje the most threatening thing that Tony Stark has done was sleep in some very strange positions. T’Challa wanted nothing to do with this but he did not want to disappoint his father.

Shuri perches on his bed watching him procrastinate preparing to go deal with the Stark problem somewhat enviously. “If you would like to go instead, be my guest,” he tells her.

“I am not allowed because I am ‘too young’. You were not too young when you were sixteen,” she mumbles under her breath. Oh, but he wished he was, he had a Masters thesis to be working on, he had no time for Starks. Shuri calls him ungrateful when he tells her that though but he does not think he is ungrateful at all.

“You need to learn,” his father tells him patiently when he finally emerges from his room. If it were not for Shuri hurrying him along he probably would have stretched his time out longer but she _insisted_ that he move faster.

“He already told us why he was here, he wanted to be in jail, just leave him there. Everyone wins,” T’Challa says. That way he could go back to things he actually found important, Stark could enjoy his life rotting in a prison cell, and they could all just forget about this whole thing.

“T’Challa,” his father says in a warning tone that meant he best listen if he did not want his life to be miserable. He sighs and follows his father out of the house so he could get to the bottom of this Stark problem.

*

Tony sits patiently at the table handcuffed to it via an unfamiliar metal. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was probably vibranuim. The metal is smooth and Tony doesn’t need to test it to know that it’s strong either, he can feel the different texture and strength of the metal from the way it feels on his skin alone.

The door to the small room he was currently stuffed in opens and someone walks in. A guy this time and Tony raises an eyebrow, “ahh, your bodyguards _do_ come in male. Kinda wondered about that,” he says, earning a dirty look.

“I am not one of the Dora Milaje, I am the prince,” the guy- T’Challa then- says. He sounds offended but Tony isn’t too worried about that given that he was already in jail, what other kind of shenanigans could he get into?

“Awesome, any way you could like… talk them into hosing me down or something? Seriously, my dick cheese has dick cheese.”

T’Challa’s whole face scrunches, “that is _disgusting_ ,” he says with meaning.

“Yeah, I know. It’s my dick that’s suffering. Look, I don’t really expect much but I’m sacrificing hygiene.” He was sort of expecting a little bit of torture or something so he hadn’t been concerned about whether or not he’d be clean but apparently Wakanda was nicer than what pop culture liked to make of it.

“Perhaps you should have thought of that _before_ you broke into my country,” T’Challa tells him.

“Uh, prison shows have taught me that showers are a thing. If housing me is expensive or something I will _gladly_ give up breakfast for a shower. Besides, I sort of figured you might torture me a little and then like… drop me in a hole to die or something.” Instead he got whatever the hell this was, not that he was complaining.

“Why come here if you assumed we would kill you? And we are not _barbarians_ though the media certainly loves to depict us that way,” T’Challa says, lip curling in anger.

“Told ya this already, I have a shitty father and I needed a hidey hole. This seemed like a good option,” he says flippantly.

“Torture and death was a better option than your father? I find that difficult to believe,” T’Challa says. He raises an eyebrow at Tony but all he does is snort.

“Torture and death was the only option I had, I figured I’d make it quick here. But then you guys were nice, kind of.” He could use a shower or ten but other than that Wakanda has been pretty peachy compared to what he was expecting.

T’Challa frowns, “what?”

“What? It isn’t my fault you kept asking _why_ I was here instead of _why_ I was running to begin with. Run better interrogations,” Tony says.

“You are seriously arguing about semantics?” T’Challa asks, shaking his head. “You are in prison, what use is playing with words to you?”

“Uh, _all_ the use in playing with words. I’m going to be stuck here for the rest of my life; I have to get my kicks somehow. I’m already bored to death; I figured I might as well make my own entertainment.” Thus far they didn’t seem intent on killing him or maiming him, they were mostly just interested in treating him like the average prisoner. He expected worse than a tiny room with a reinforced glass door and a pathetic excuse for a prison cot but he’d take that over what his own imagination drew up.

T’Challa examines him for a moment, tilting his head to the side in question. Tony waits for more but nothing seems to come.

*

He examines Stark’s cell because he had a theory. “Has he examined the doors much?” he asks Okoye.

She shakes her head, “not particularly. I imagine all his time spent staring out the door would have given him a decent view though,” she adds. It is almost a joke though it is not very funny. T’Challa laughs anyways because Okoye might have an odd sense of humor but he appreciated it anyways.

“Lovely. Lock me in here for a moment,” he says eyeing the mechanisms in the door. Okoye frowns at him, her eyebrows drawing together in question. “I have a theory,” he says simply. She complies after a moment, sliding the door shut. T’Challa watches the mechanisms close and tries his best to estimate how many times Tony saw them interlock within the glass. He examines the door, trying to figure out how he would explain the mechanisms if he had never seen them before. Of course he knew how they worked, he _made_ those doors with the intent on keeping Shuri out of his room not that his father had let him install one. There were weak points, of course, but only someone with a high understanding of mechanics could find a way to break out. Stark was more than qualified.

It does not take him long to plot a plausible escape, “bring Stark here, please,” he says to Okoye, who nods to one of her underlings. Stark appears a few minutes later and T’Challa runs through his escape routine easily. Stark doesn’t looks the slightest bit surprised to Okoye does. “You could have escaped at any point but you did not. Why?” he asks.

“We are putting new doors on this cell,” Okoye mumbles, eyeing the now open door suspiciously.

“Don’t worry about it. Princely here is right, I have no intentions on escaping. Why break in to break out? Actually, that kind of sounds like fun but I’m not going to do it so you don’t have to worry. Or look at me like you’re going to murder me.” Stark leans away from Okoye and she narrows her eyes at him cautiously.

“I cannot believe you are so stupid that you broke into a country strictly for them to jail you. You could not come up with a better plan?” T’Challa asks, rolling his eyes.

“Sure, I could have called the cops and watched my dad pay them off. I could have called some other government shit and watched him pay _them_ off, maybe I could have called in a favor to a friend or two in high places only to watch them get threatened or paid off or both. I could have called my aunt Peggy and she would have beat his ass and made sure _he_ was the one rotting in prison but I only thought of that at the tail end of this plan and I’m not much of a quitter so here I am, in jail. Kinda wished I called aunt Peggy but you know, hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that,” Stark says. He would have waved a hand around but when he goes to lift his left hand the chains that attached his wrists to his ankles pull tight and restrict his movement.

“You are the most confusing person I have ever met,” T’Challa tells him.

*

Over the course of the next several days T’Challa cannot seem to get the younger Stark off his kind, which leads to him thinking of the older Stark. Because it was distracting him from his studies he decides to investigate farther, looking up any and all media pertaining to one Tony Stark. He finds quickly that there is a large reward for his return, a number of videos of his mother crying, his friends claiming they know nothing but even T’Challa can tell that they are lying. The butler had something else to say too but he, like Stark’s friends, seemed intent on keeping his mouth shut.

After hours of research, watching videos, and reading various articles T’Challa decides that Stark’s story matches up with the untainted evidence sitting in front of him. Every time Howard Stark or Obadiah Stane mentioned Tony they made direct reference to his intelligence and inventions, not his humanity. It had become abundantly clear to T’Challa that neither one of them had any regards to Tony as a person; instead they saw him as a product for them to use and make money off of. He rules Maria Stark out of this because she did nothing _but_ talk about Tony’s humanity. It was her reactions that likely saved the elder Stark from looking like a sociopath given how little he seemed to care.

“What are you up to?” someone asks from behind him. T’Challa jumps, whirling around to find his father smiling fondly down at him.

“Research on Stark’s story. What little of it we have matches with the media coverage and my own analysis. He said something about torture and death being his only option and I am curious about that.” He has several theories, all involving Howard Stark, but he liked to keep an open mind until he had definitive proof.

His father smiles wide, “it is good to see you taking this seriously. I have been waiting for a long time for you to outgrow your pride. Keep at it,” he says. He’s practically glowing with happiness and pride for his son and T’Challa slumps in his seat a little, ashamed that the only reason that he had come back to this was because Stark was interesting. He had no interest outside of that and it did not sit right with him that his father was proud of him for something he did not intend to do. Instead od dwelling on it he throws himself back into his research so he could get a better picture of what was going on here.

*

Tony was so not impressed with his new steel door with no windows and a little slot that he got fed through. He didn’t even get a bed frame now either so now he was stuck sleeping on a mat on the ground with a thin little blanket that did nothing to protect against the cold. And _still_ no shower. _Ugh_. He was about ready to give up on his dreams of a shower when the prince shows back up looking dapper and wrinkling his nose at Tony’s stench.

“I have to live in it so don’t you dare wrinkle you nose. If I have to stew in my ball sweat and swamp ass so do you,” he snaps.

“I am never skipping shower day again,” T’Challa mumbles.

“Great. Me neither, but mostly because I don’t _get_ a shower day. Cleanliness is next to godliness you know.”

“You are an atheist,” T’Challa says, deadpan. So he’s done his research, whatever.

“I’ll become devout if I get a shower,” he lies. He wouldn’t become a religious nut for any reason, even a shower.

“No you won’t. Now, tell me what you meant by torture and death being your only option,” he says. Tony, mostly because he had nothing better to do, tells him everything. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t trying to guilt T’Challa into bossing someone around so he got a damn shower. In his defense it works.

*

Peggy Carter has always been impressed by Maria’s strength but this incident in particular impressed her more. Maria casually wipes her hands off on a damp cloth looking unimpressed with the whole situation. “You will help me clean this up, right?” she asks. Her voice is steady and her expression is carefully neutral. Her publicity face, Peggy knows.

“Oh course. Had you killed him I would have still cleaned it up for you,” she tells Maria honestly. There was a time, a long time ago, when she and Howard were good friends. Then something happened and he grew cold and she could not find any redemption for a person how hit their significant other, or their child. But she held her tongue and stuck to the shadows because she remained good friends with Maria and Peggy knew how strong a woman she was. If anyone could handle this kind of situation it was Maria. She had plenty of reservations about leaving Tony in this mess but Maria has assured her that she had things covered. Peggy was certain that Maria’s version of covered was not the same as hers but she had better things to do than judge the woman for her questionable parenting choices.

Howard Stark wasn’t exactly the kind of man you could just leave and be done with the whole thing. As much as Peggy didn’t want to admit it she understood why Maria would stay. Which begged the question, “what finally made you snap?” she asks. Of all the horrible things that Howard has done to Maria, and probably her son too, what finally made her snap? Maria, like Howard and even Tony, has an iron will. Once she made her decision she stuck with it- it was both a good and bad trait.

“The evidence is on the table beside Howard. You might want to make sure he isn’t bleeding out,” she says in a cold tone, sparing the room next to her with distain.

“The knife was too shallow to cause much damage, trust me I’ve used enough knives. I’d know,” she says as she moves to the next room. Maria, for her part, is meticulous in her organizing and presentation. Peggy would expect nothing less from someone in her position let alone from someone with Maria’s personality. She reads through Maria’s well-organized evidence and she grows from mildly curious about what caused Maria to snap to horrified to downright disgusted. “Piece of shit,” she snarls down at Howard’s currently tied up form. Howard wiggles around and Peggy delivers a swift kick to his side, right where one of Maria’s stabs landed. He lets out a high-pitched scream around his gag that Peggy normally would have been upset by but some people simply deserved to suffer. “Mark my words, Stark, you _will_ pay for this. I’ve been gathering evidence to use against you for years in case Maria ever decided to leave but _this_? This will get you a lethal injection,” she hisses at him venomously.

“That too good for him if you ask me,” Maria says, giving her husband a cold, appraising look.

“Yes, well. Our government only condones torture when it’s convenient for them,” Peggy says, “otherwise I’d vote for that.” Howard glares up at her but she remains unaffected by it, “we should find your son though. I suspect he caught wind of this and took off like an idiot. I love him but he is far too impulsive.”

Maria huffs out a laugh, “well, if I found out my father planned on torturing me and killing me I might have been spooked into running off too. I suppose we should talk to his friends, hmm?”

“Right after we stab Obadiah Stane,” Peggy says casually.

*

“This is _glorious_ ,” Tony says, throwing himself onto the fluffy white couch with glee. His was _clean_ , his clothes were fresh, he no longer had to sleep on a mat he was certain contracted lice or some other bug, it was practically like being back home again.

“Sorry for detaining you,” T’Challa says somewhat sheepishly.

“Ahh, no worries. That was kind of my goal. I figured this would be the safest place for me regardless of the conditions given that it’s improbable that anyone would even guess I was here let alone actually manage to break in and steal me back,” Tony says. Rhodey had called him a nut and Jarvis gave him several disapproving looks but he hadn’t let that hold him back from achieving his dreams of being in a Wakandan prison.

“You are one strange man,” T’Challa tells him. Tony shrugs, taking it as a compliment. “Now, seems how you have no clue how our jail system works here is how things operate…”

Tony discovers that Wakanda’s prison systems were freakishly nice. He had an entire apartment to himself and he was in _jail_. Plus he got to take classes and stuff so that he could be a productive member of society at the end of it. According to T’Challa his old residence, if he could call it that, was a detention center meant to hold foreigners that broke in. So basically what he was, which Tony guessed was fair. It would be kind of hypocritical to judge Wakanda’s way of dealing with foreign entries when his own country wasn’t much better.

He also discovers how bloody brilliant T’Challa is and he’s more than a little delighted that he finally knew someone who could keep up with his science. Normally his friends fell behind with the exception of Rhodey, who mostly kept up. But to be fair he made friends with a bunch of humanities majors for some reason. And to be honest he was as lost on their work as they were on his. T’Challa was a fantastic inventor even if he wasn’t quite as good as Tony himself was. That didn’t make their conversations any less colorful once T’Challa figured out that Tony’s talent was not a product of money and power.

The two shared a love for learning and mechanics and they were happy to bounce ideas off one another. T’Challa had been impressed with Tony’s semi-autonomous AI system that he named after Jarvis, not that he told Jarvis that. He didn’t want to freak the butler out by telling him that Tony had named one of the most advanced inventions ever created after him. He even gave JARVIS actual Jarvis’ accent. In turn he had been impressed with T’Challa’s own work around the application of vibranium in different kind of circuits.

“You know,” T’Challa says one night, “if someone told me a month ago I would spend most of my free time with a prisoner in jail I would have laughed at them.”

“If someone told me a month ago I would be willingly hanging out in a Wakandan jail I would have asked how many shots they had taken and asked them to hand me whatever they were drinking. Guess we’re both in weird spots,” he says.

T’Challa sighs, “so we are. My father, he thinks I spend time here because I have taken some sort of interest in foreign politics. I am not certain how to tell him that I am here for my own selfish purposes, especially when he already thinks that I am selfish,” he says softly, looking away.

“You aren’t selfish. I know what selfish looks like, _I’m_ selfish and you aren’t anything like me. I’m sure your father doesn’t actually think that about you.” If he did the guy needed a tune up in the brain area because T’Challa wasn’t selfish at all.

“He does. He told me not long ago that he has been waiting a long time for me to grow out of my pride. How do I explain that I have not?” T’Challa asks, looking at the ceiling with a furrowed brow.

“Maybe you don’t need to tell him anything. Show him instead, that’s better than words anyways,” Tony points out. He remembered Howard’s many promises to ‘change’, how it never lasted more than a month at best. Words didn’t mean much to him anymore, not without the actions to back them up and as a king he figured T’Chaka might be similar. After all most people were lying skeeze bags in politics, it must be nice to come across someone who wasn’t shitty every once and while.

“You really _are_ a genius,” T’Challa tells him.

Tony sorts, “duh,” he says, earning a playful swat from T’Challa that makes then both laugh.

*

He isn’t sure _how_ they manage but aunt Peggy alone was a force to be reckoned with let alone his mom. People liked to talk about women in abusive relationships like they were hapless victims but Tony knew that wasn’t true. Maria Stark was one of the strongest people he knew and regardless of her crap choice in men he aspired to be like her some day. Strong, compassionate, driven, successful, those were all traits that he wanted. Plus she had a great sense of humor and that was a must for anyone to have. It had taken a little digging but he finally managed to find T’Challa’s just in time to meet his younger sister and Shuri was _hilarious_. T’Challa, Tony was certain, was jealous that he and Shuri hit it off right away and that was a bit of an ego boost.

T’Challa was pretty attractive and all things considered he was a pretty good person too. Despite being stuck in jail the whole time he was there the worst thing he had to complain about was the lack of shower services in the beginning but he let that go in light of being handed a whole _apartment_. The Dora Milaje guarded him all day but he didn’t mind so much, occasionally he’d get one of them to laugh and that was one hell of an accomplishment.

They surround him as he waits for his mom and aunt Peggy too, but he didn’t mind that either. When he finally sees his mom he jumps up and runs to her, throwing his arms around her. “Oh Tony, thank god you’re okay! What were you _thinking_?” she asks.

“He wasn’t, as usual,” Peggy says, raising an eyebrow at him. “Next time you discover a nefarious plan to kidnap and kill you call me.”

“I thought of that later, but I was mostly through this plan and figured fuck it, might as well follow through. And it wasn’t so bad, they’re nice here,” he says. He goes to pull away from his mom but she pulls him back quickly and into another hug. She holds him tight, face pressed into his hair because as much as he tried he was still freakishly short in comparison to like everyone.

“Don’t ever do something like this again, Anthony Edward Stark,” she tells him, “you could have been killed!”

“Yeah, but it would have looked cool,” he says, grinning. Peggy smacks her palm to her forehead and he gets one hell of a dirty look from his mother.

*

He keeps in touch with T’Challa, which freaks out everyone around him but he wasn’t about to give up good science talk. T’Challa, for his part, seemed to genuinely enjoy Tony too and it was rare for both of them to find someone who saw them outside of their respective statuses. When T’Challa tells him that he’s going to Tony’s university to give a speech he makes sue to drag one freaked out Rhodey along given that he was currently home between training exercises.

“I hope you know you’re the weirdest person on this planet. How ends up friends with the dude that threw him in jail?” Rhodey asks, frowning at him.

“Lots of people I’m sure. Besides, T’Challa was nice, I told you that. We bonded over science and daddy issues even if the daddy issues for him happen to be a fear of not living up to T’Chaka’s expectations,” he says. Tony’s own daddy issues? Way more complicated, but the knowledge that his mother found Howard’s plans and _stabbed_ him for trying to kill off his own son was pretty awesome. It was made more awesome when he found out she stabbed him _twice_ , tied him up and gagged him, then called aunt Peggy to take out the trash.

She got off any charges that could have been leveled against her easily- it was a crime of passion really- but Howard and Obadiah were drowning in a bunch of legal charges that aunt Peggy still kept piling on. By the end of all of this there should be no way that they should get off without a lot of jail time at least.

“No one remains friends with their jailor, Tony. Are you sure you don’t have like… Stockholm syndrome or something?” Rhodey asks, worried.

“One hundred percent sure, now come on we’re going to miss the lecture,” Tony says, dragging Rhodey along. T’Challa, as always, was interesting and informed on his subject and the lecture held Tony’s full attention. Rhodey, however, seemed more intent on watching him than T’Challa and that was a real shame.

When T’Challa’s lecture is done he finds Tony and gives him an easy smile, “you are looking good, better than the last time I saw you,” he notes.

“That’s because the last time you saw him he was in _jail_. _Your_ jail,” Rhodey says in a disapproving tone.

“Rhodey, T’Challa, T’Challa, Rhodey. He’s my best friend, the one I told you about,” Tony says.

T’Challa inclines his head to Rhodey, “nice to meet you. Now, Tony, as your friend has so aptly pointed out you did not see much of Wakanda while you were there. I would love to show you around some time,” he says with a winning smile.

Who could say no to that, really? “Sure, name a time and I’ll be there,” he says easily.

“Uh, no, this is not happening. It is not, Tony this is more ridiculous than usual for you. I do _not_ approve of whatever this is,” Rhodey says, waving his hands around.

“Tomorrow?” T’Challa suggests.

“Ohh, last minute adventure! I’m in,” Tony says enthusiastically.

“I knew you would be. I will pick you up at seven sharp,” T’Challa tells him.

“Awesome, how long am I staying?” he asks.

“You are staying _never_ is when you’re staying,” Rhodey tells him. “This is not happening.”

“You are welcome to come along,” T’Challa says to Rhodey.

“Hell yeah I’ll be there, someone’s gotta make sure Tony lives and apparently it’s not going be Tony and I will be happy to have his back,” Rhodey says, nose in the air. Tony and T’Challa crack up at Rhodey’s indignance but this only serves to offend him more.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


End file.
